Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

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The Digital Photographer's Software Guide
Figure 17.3
Noiseware has the intelligence to improve as it gets to know your images.
Picture Cooler
Vendor: R. Kroonenberg
Purpose: Noise reduction, sharpening and “camera unshake” software with batch processing
Description
Picture Cooler not only reduces noise but also provides sharpening options such as
deconvolution and high-pass sharpening, and can help to minimize the effect of camera
shake. It is not quite competitive with top commercial software on features, but has
a highly competitive price. Features include a large preview window, toggling between
preview and original image, and facilities to apply different levels of noise reduction to
various parts of the image. Besides noise reduction it offers image sharpening and a
“camera unshake” feature to remove blur.
Comments
Ronnie Kroonenberg’s Picture Cooler came in as the number five recommendation on
Michael Almond’s list of 22 noise reduction programs. This is quite an achievement,
given the stiffness of the competition. The poor presentation of the product online (do
they have English spell-checkers in the Netherlands?) completely belies the efficiency
of its easy-to-use interface and the quality of its output. It takes only a minute or two
to download, install, and try—and it comes ready-loaded with a trial picture.